PRE CONGRESS

Pre Congress Day - Quality Workshops

We are in an advanced, maybe even accelerated, stage of entrepreneurism and there are more entrepreneurs over the age of 65 than there are under 30.

Startup valuations are increasing. Funding for early stage companies is readily available. The next generation of incubators/accelerators have evolved into “academies” integrating companies, executives, funders, a host of other mentors and serial entrepreneurs, and unlikely value added partners. There is no doubt of the value and future role of entrepreneurs and startups. A 2014 report from Accenture stated that we could see 10 million new jobs in the next five years because of this trend. Yet, the corporate world is not a mirror image, but admits there is value and opportunities when large and small companies come together.

So why is this not happening at the same rate as the creation of startups? Why cannot large companies innovate and think more creatively? The pressure is on. Corporate CEO need to be able to see around the bend and anticipate and prepare for change and forces that will disrupt them or allow them to establish a truly competitive and strategic advantage and grow.

Innovation, an overly used and probably mis-used word, is everywhere but not necessarily fully harnessed. While there is more that can be done with new innovative ideas and sustainable technologies, the current tools that companies can use to grow are also underutilized.

This workshop will map out “innovation discovery tools,” and explore ways that companies can learn to gain value from startups. Small “things” from the outside can and will add value and we will learn how and what this new balance of power can look like. By mapping continuums based on your insight and experiences we will create an effective pathway and toolbox for companies, large and small, to grow together.

Content:Quality professionals have consistently asked: “how can we sell quality to senior executives?” Peter Drucker commented on this question in 2001 – he said, “it is not your job to tell your business leaders what to do!”

Are we taking the right approach in the way that we approach quality promotion and dissemination through the executive function of our organizations?

This session will help quality leaders to understand the language and quality responsibility of the executive function and how to position quality as a key strategy for organizational improvement, rather than the development of a quality strategy for execution of the quality function. The implications of executive responsibility, the language of the executive dialog within organizations, and the mechanisms for the deployment of transformational programs will be examined and the application of these vehicles to the subject of quality will be clearly presented.

Mr. Watson has spent over 30 years as a quality advisor to executives at leading organizations: Hewlett-Packard, Compaq Computer, Xerox, Nokia Mobile Phones, Toshiba, and ExxonMobil are some of the major engagements he has had during this career. In addition, Mr. Watson is considered a leading expert on strategic quality having authored 10 books and over 300 papers and speeches related to this subject.

This pre-conference event will probe into the lessons he has learned along this journey through the process of engaging numerous respected business leaders on development of an understanding for how quality can be positioned as a differentiator in their business and the specific role and actions that must be taken by the executive function to make this happen – as well as the specific things that the executive function must not do to encourage acceptance of quality as an enabler of performance throughout their entire organization.

The Workshop introduces and describes: the innovative concept of Prognostics, an engineering discipline, which is an essential and vital part of the decision making process called Prognostic Health Management (PHM).

Prognostics is intended to foresee the future performance of the System or Process under observation (SPUO) by assessing the extent of degradation of the SPUO and its deviation from the expected normal operational performance.

Prognostics is used to evaluate the residual time named “Remaining Useful Life” (RUL) - the time period to the moment when the specific SPUO will enter a predefined “Critical State” (Failure), and therefore should be stopped, or treated in advance to be restored to use.

RUL is very important concept in the PHM, namely the decision making process leading to contingency mitigation, that is Proactive activity assuring Quality.

The Workshop describes different types of existing prognostics Methods and Models, and shows their advantages and disadvantages.

Participants will be introduced to some prognostic algorithms and their development process, making a special accent for the demonstration of the differences between several solutions.

Case studies and examples, based on NASA Data Repository and PHM 2012 Challenge Data, will illustrate and clarify various types of relevant resulting scenarios of data-driven prognostic techniques.

This will include discussion on significance of different approaches like an initial data smoothing, amount of parameters reduction, tuning of the control parameters, etc.

Finally, the practical aspects of Prognostics implementation for detection and forecasting, such as SPC, as well as new Process Control application ideas will be presented and discussed.

This workshop is intended for both beginners and experts in Quality Function Deployment. It will present the new ISO 16355-1:2015 standard for QFD using a case study involving developing a patient information app for healthcare service providers.

International experts from Europe, Asia, and the Americas have created the new ISO 16355 standard for applications of statistical and related methods to new technology and product development process. The standard is organized into eight parts that use modern quality function deployment to improve new product development from initial project concept to commercialization. The parts are:

- Part 1: General Principle and Perspective of QFD Method (ISO 16355-1:2015) - Part 2: Acquisition of Non-quantitative VOC or VOS - Part 3: Acquisition of Quantitative VOC or VOS - Part 4: Analysis of Non-Quantitative and Quantitative VOC/VOS - Part 5: Solution Strategy - Part 6: Optimization — Robust parameter design - Part 7: Optimization — Tolerance design and output to manufacturing - Part 8: Guidelines for commercialization and life cycle